Video: Sally-Anne Friedland’s Dance Drama Company in A Private Collection

One of 11 premieres in this year’s Maholohet festival, Sally-Anne Friedland’s A Private Collection was first performed at Suzanne Dellal on July 19th. Now the work is heading to Jerusalem on August 20th and returning to Tel Aviv’s Suzanne Dellal Center on August 22nd.

My preview of A Private Collection was first published as “A Public Premiere” in the Jerusalem Post on July 17, 2009.

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A Public Premiere

When choreographer Sally-Anne Friedland was commissioned to make a work for her visit to the Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theatre in New York City, she created a short dance called Borders. “It was like an unfinished symphony,” Friedland explains, “I knew I would come back to it one day.”

Three years later, Borders has become what Friedland calls the “cornerstone” of her latest creation. Like its predecessor, A Private Collection investigates “intimate borders, personal borders, how far we can go and what we need for protection.”

But this new work goes deeper, with three sections that take the audience on a multi-layered, visually luscious journey. Opening with dancers spread across the floor in frozen positions and covered with pastel-colored sheets of tulle, “Yesterday” conveys the sense that something has already happened. The dancers soon come alive, cleverly manipulating the nets to become bustles or bridal veils.